POBOS Strikes Utah!
Feeling lethargic? Are you rundown and sluggish? Does everything taste like a $5 Olympic hotdog? Do you crave lukewarm beer in plastic cups at $6 a pop? Do you long to see concrete barricades and an army of yellow-jacketed policemen?
We knew there would be a price for putting on the Winter Games. We just didn’t know it was going to be this high. If you long to trade pins or stand in the port-a-potty line at the Medals Plaza, you could be one of thousands of Utahns now suffering from Post-Olympic Bum Out Syndrome—or POBOS for short.
Of course, SLOC had warned us that this would happen: Suddenly our lives seemed meaningless as all of our newfound international buddies packed up their I.D. tags and hospitality houses and went home leaving us to rot here in Zion with POBOS. But according to experts, there are some things we can do to let ourselves down slowly:
1. Get together with your friends at South Temple and Main to trade pins in your Roots Olympic berets while reminiscing about evangelicals shouting at the Temple gates.
2. Drink lukewarm Budweiser in plastic cups at least three times a day.
3. Go downtown to the corner of 200 South and Main and yell, “Tickets, tickets, I need tickets. Buy, sell. You got hockey? You want hockey?”
4. Eat cold hotdogs in week-old buns at least three times a day. Skip the condiments.
5. Find a cold metal grandstand at a high school or some other place and arrive before dawn, sitting there reading your Olympic program until your cheeks freeze off.
* While we’re on the subject of bummers, a report in The Salt Lake Tribune reveals that escort services were among the businesses that got screwed, that is to say, went limp, during the Olympics. Trib Editor James E. Shelledy threw a phalanx of reporters to probe under the skirt of this titillating story. Well, we knew going in that there’d be ups and downs to these Games.
*Speaking of sport, new events, including skeleton and snowboarding, were big hits at the Winter Olympics. But curling unexpectedly turned many heads at the recent Games as a sport that required skill but not necessarily athleticism. Perhaps that is why right in the middle of the Games, the LDS church let out a press release through the Deseret News suggesting that home storage be considered as a new Olympic competition.
Mormons have long been known for storing large amounts of food in their basements, preparing for apocalypse. But gentiles, apparently, have been unaware that such activity had reached the vaunted plateau of sport.
* The Olympics were a lot of fun for guys like Gov. Mike Leavitt and Mayor Rocky Anderson. But what about House Speaker Marty Stephens? He didn’t get invited to anything, including hobnobbing with President Bush or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Thank you, Mister Governor. Apparently, Mike was giving Marty the cold shoulder for threatening to run against him and then messing with his budget in the Legislature. Some Olympic spirit. Poor Marty.
Anyone wishing to buoy Marty’s spirits can send him an Olympic pin. Mail to Office of the Speaker, Capitol Building, Salt Lake City, 84114. Please refrain from sending pins that indicate beer, dancing or fun.
About The Author
Carolyn Campbell
Campbell has been writing for City Weekly since the 1980s. Her insightful pieces have won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists chapters in Utah and Colorado.
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